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Sunday, 14 February 2016

Jim's column 13.2.2016

As I write this the
finishing touches are being made to the Jimmy Hill celebration that
took place at the Cathedral last night. I hope it was a successful
event – the hard work from all the parties involved deserved to be
rewarded – and today our attention turns to Legends Day.

It is the ninth Legends
Day since the Former Players Association was formed in 2007 and as
usual there will be a host of stars at today's game. Legends Day has
caught the attention of City supporters with over 500 people will be
enjoying hospitality today. Amongst the guests will be a good
contingent of the Hill family, including at least three of his
children.

Hopefully 1987 FA Cup
final skipper Brian Kilcline has arrived safely from Portugal and
Bill Glazier is jetting in from Spain. There are lots more of City's
former stars attending including Ian Wallace, Bobby Gould, Garry
Thompson and Greg Downs. It promises to be another memorable day and
I would encourage fans to be at their seats for the half-time parade
of the stars and give them a fantastic reception.

I
mentioned last week that a 'new' member, 93-year old Ray Paul, was
attending and he is very excited about what will be his first visit
to the Ricoh. A centre forward, Ray, who was the son
of a trainer of near neighbours Nuneaton Borough, joined his dad and
became a striking sensation with the ‘Borough’ scoring 42 goals
in the 1941-42 season. Ray turned out for Coventry City as a guest
player in the wartime Football League North and scored 8 goals in his
ten appearances. He made
his debut in a 4-1 defeat for the City in September 1944 at the
Hawthorns v West Brom. Two weeks later he scored a hat-trick
on his home debut in a 4-3 victory over Port Vale and went on to
score eight goals in ten starts for the Bantams. In the same Coventry
side at the time were City stalwarts George Mason, Walter Metcalf and
Billy Frith. Ray also played as guest in six games for Nottingham
Forest up to 1945-46. I'm looking forward to finding out what became
of Ray after the war but I believe he played for Atherstone Town and
ran a wallpaper shop in that town.

Ray Paul

Ray
is definitely the earliest surviving player to become a member of
CCFPA but Colin Collindridge at 96 is our oldest surviving former
player but wasn’t signed for the City until 1954. Another member
Jack Lovering who is also 93 was a WW2 junior for CCFC but didn’t
make his first team debut for the Bantams until 1946.

Before
last week's game at Vale Park Mike Prince asked me if City had played
a friendly there in the late 1970s. He remembers going as a boy with
his dad. The only friendly in that era was on 10 August 1976 when
Gordon Milne took his team to the Potteries for a pre-season game.
City won 3-0 with goals from David Cross (2) and Alan Green. The team
was: Blyth:
Coop, Holmes, Craven, Lloyd (Brogan), Dugdale, Beck (Cartwright),
Green, Cross, Murphy (Ferguson), Powell.

Keith
Ballantyne emailed me recently. He had been watching a video of
City's final game at Highfield Road in 2005 which resulted in a 6-2
victory for the Sky Blues. He commented that Andrew Whing scored
very quickly after coming on as a substitute and wondered if it was
the quickest goal ever by a City sub. I watched the video myself and
timed Whing's goal at 55 seconds after coming off the bench. There
are several contenders for the title of fastest goal by a sub. In
addition to Whing there are three other City subs who scored,
according to match reports, 'within a minute' of coming on: John Beck
at West Brom in a 3-3 draw in 1978, Noel Whelan v Burnley in the FA
Cup in 2000 and Laurent Delorge at Sheffield United in 2001 (his
first touch in league football). Unless anyone has evidence to the
contrary I believe the fastest was recorded by Wayne Andrews at
Barnsley in 2006. Wayne's goal (on his debut) came 23 seconds after
he came off the bench for Leon McKenzie. Andrews' career at Coventry
was severely hampered by injuries and in his two years at the club he
never started a game but made 10 substitute appearances but never
scored another goal.

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About Me

I have supported Coventry City FC since my first visit to Highfield Road in 1962. I am the club's official historian and have a regular column in the Coventry Telegraph. Here I would like to enable my readers who can't buy the paper to access my columns and comment.